PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is an open-source scripting language for creating dynamic web sites.

PHP code runs on the web server such as Nginx, Apache, and others. This page explains how to install PHP 7.x (7.2/7.3/7.4) on CentOS 8 Linux server along with the Nginx web server.

Ensure latest packages

sudo dnf update

Enable remi’s repo

sudo dnf install dnf-utils http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm

Search for php

sudo dnf search php

For centos 8 you can check which php modules are enabled

sudo dnf module list php

By default php 7.2 is enabled for centos 8 so if that is the version you want install it with

sudo dnf -y install php

# To install an old version of php
sudo dnf install -y php70

# Install php modules
sudo dnf install php-fpm php-common php-cli

Install FastCGI module for Nginx on CentOS 8

sudo dnf install -y php-fpm

Additional php modules are available with pgp-* packages

sudo sudo dnf search php-

Enabling different versions of PHP such as 7.3 and 7.4 on CentOS 8

if you need PHP version 7.3 or 7.4, ensure remi repo is enabled then type the following commands

sudo yum module reset php
sudo yum module enable php:remi-7.4

Verify php version

php -v
php --version

Enable and restart both PHP and Nginx server

sudo systemctl enable nginx php-fpm
sudo systemctl restart nginx php-fpm

Configure PHP to work with Nginx server

First, find out the location of PHP-FPM FastCGI server config using the cat command

cat /etc/nginx/conf.d/php-fpm.conf

Make sure Unix socket is up and running, run:

ls -l /run/php-fpm/www.sock

My php-fpm config for CentOS 8 with Nginx:

cat /etc/nginx/default.d/php.conf

The file

index index.php index.html index.htm;

location ~ \.php$ {
    try_files $uri =404;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    fastcgi_index  index.php;
    include        fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_pass   php-fpm;
}

Restart the nginx service/server
Again, run the systemctl command:

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Test and verify both PHP installation
Add contet to /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php

cat > /usr/share/nginx/html/info.php <<EOF
<?php
    phpinfo();
?>
EOF

Check in browser by visiting http://localhost/info.php or:

curl -I http://localhost/info.php

How to configure PHP 7.x

You need to edit the following files as per your needs:

/etc/php.ini – PHP’s initialization and config file. Do not modify this file. Instead create custom.ini in /etc/php.d/ directory.
/etc/php-fpm.conf – Gloable FPM (FastCGI) configuration file.
/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf – FastCGI (FPM) www pool config file.
/etc/php.d/ – PHP modules config file.